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August 13, 2006

Apple Thinks Vista Is Going To Slip

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference was this last week, and, while I spent as much time with my eyes glued to the QuickTime stream as the next Mac fiend, I've needed a bit of time to digest the announcements and think about what everything "means."

One problem with taking the better part of a week to chew on this stuff is that other (often better) writers will have already chimed in with their opinions. In one corner, we have Leander Kahney over at Wired ("Has Steve Jobs Lost His Magic?"):

Steve Jobs' keynote speech on Monday was the most uninspiring he's given in recent memory.

The sneak preview of Leopard was underwhelming. For what seemed an interminable time, Jobs and Co. showed off one yawn after another. There's no way I can get excited about virtual desktops or a new service that turns highlighted text into a "to do" item. Oooo.

In the other, we've got a gaggle of gurgling, happy developers who are cooing over the features that didn't make the keynote. If you're hot on garbage-collected Objective-C, resolution-independent display systems, and the infinite eye-candy possibilities of things like Core Animation, then WWDC was very good news indeed.

Personally, I'm delighted with some of the features of Leopard: I can see myself making immediate use of Spaces, and a more-powerful iChat, Mail and iCal are most welcome. (And Time Machine is a stunningly cool solution to a decidedly un-sexy problem - it's as if brushing and flossing became hip).

But for all the announcements made on (and off) stage, I think the big one was strangely missed or overlooked by a lot of the attendees. What am I talking about?

Well, it's clear that Apple thinks Vista is going to be delayed. Again.

Steve made a big deal during the keynote about new, "Top Secret" features of Leopard that weren't being shown:

Today, we want to give you a preview of Leopard.

So let me start off with some of the stuff that we can't show you. There's some top secret features to Leopard that we're going to keep a little close to the vest and we're not going to show you today. I just want you to know they're there. [Laughs] We don't want our friends to start their photocopiers sooner than they have to, and so we're going to keep a few things a little secret.

You know something? This doesn't make any sense.

(Oh, my usual disclaimer, here - yes, I work at Microsoft. No, I don't know anything. OK?)

Back in March, it was announced that Vista would be rolled out for businesses in November, with retail availability in January 2007.

If you know how software is built, you can whip out a calendar and start figuring some things out. First, if Vista is being rolled out in November, then Vista's bits would have to be frozen - go Gold Master - in mid-to-late October. That's roughly 60 - 90 days from now. With so little time between now and the final release, the developers, testers, and program managers who are building the software aren't going to add anything to the product. Instead, the focus is in making the software as high-quality as possible, and that means killing bugs, bugs, and more bugs. New features add complexity, and complexity increases the chances of bugs. No program manager worth her salt is going to add a single thing to a major, major product that's on a glide path to be done in the next 60 days.

So why withhold information, Steve? Why not show off every last bell and whistle in Leopard, and make us up here in Redmond grit our teeth and bear it? If our cake is in the oven and comin' out in two or three months, there's precious little we'd be able to do to match the stuff Apple is showing off.

Unless, of course, Vista is going to be late.

This isn't exactly a new suspicion. Gartner came out in May and said it believed Vista wouldn't be ready until 'at least the second quarter of next year':

"Microsoft's track record is clear," the firm says. "It consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don't expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least 2Q07 (second quarter of 2007), which is nine to 12 months after Beta 2."

Adding fuel to the fire, Bill Gates was quoted as saying last month that he's giving Vista an 80% chance of departure this year:

"We got to get this absolutely right," Gates told the Associated Press in Cape Town. "If the feedback from the beta tests shows it is not ready for prime time, I'd be glad to delay it."

(Sidebar: Bill's comments led Mac guru Wil Shipley to publicly bet Bill $10,000 that Vista wouldn't ship this year; Microsoft declined to comment, which I think is a mistake. Take the bet, Bill! If Vista ships, we look great and pocket ten grand; if we're late, $10,000 is the least of our worries. We gotta stand behind our product.)

I think Apple agrees with Gartner (and is parsing BillG's comments to mean "Vista is going to be late"). But they don't know how late the product is going to be, and that means they have to be cagey. An extra month without Vista won't allow Microsoft to add anything to the product; an extra six months (July 2007) would presumably allow some feature teams to get to work on adding new stuff.

So Apple has to wait. They're holding off the eye-popping stuff until MacWorld (January), and have given themselves a good 4 months of wiggle room to deliver Leopard with their "Spring 2007" delivery date.

(Sidebar #2: I've had some people suggest to me that there are no "Top Secret" features, and that Apple is instead way behind on Leopard. This is, without putting too fine a point on it, absurd. Barring some unbelievably liberal vacation policy, it wouldn't take Apple's well-tuned engineering department the last 16 months - let alone another nine - to deliver a backup utility, MailTags functionality and systemwide animation. It just wouldn't. Yes, I know that’s a dramatic oversimplification of WWDC's announcements, but let’s be honest – the stuff they showed certainly won't take until "Spring 2007" to deliver.)

I think the Vista-is-late non-announcement is interesting because it shows the increasing brinksmanship between Microsoft and Apple over platform customers. Anyone who remembers the launch of Windows 95 will also remember that, aside from some snarky advertisements, Apple was pretty much deer-in-the-headlights roadkill against Microsoft's marketing machine. By the time Win95 came to market in August '95, the GUI war had been decided, and Microsoft was the victor. Apple went into a downward spiral shortly thereafter, ultimately leading to Dr. Amelio and Steve's return.

This time around, Apple is planning to surf the Vista wave. Being nonspecific on the release date allows Apple to time their release around Vista's availability. Guaranteed that Apple has a timetable they’re working from, where if Vista ships on Date X, Leopard will be Date X, plus or minus, and they’ll be able to work their messaging and positioning around ours. They're waiting and seeing, so when the Microsoft marketing machine goes into hyperdrive this time around, Apple can piggyback, and entice would-be Vista PC buyers into getting a Mac.

Heck, the plan is probably already written and safely sealed inside an old mayonnaise jar that's buried under Phil Schiller's porch.

In the meantime, WWDC was a big 'ol vote of no-confidence in the Vista ship schedule. (And, as an employee and shareholder of Microsoft, I'm hoping it's wrong.)

2007 ought to be interesting.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at August 13, 2006 3:36 PM. Posted to Apple.

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